Book Review: After Dark by Haruki Murakami

After Dark by Haruki Murakami


Why this total lack of respect for my need for closure, Mr. Murakami? 😅

After dark is my third Murakami after Kafka on the shore and Norwegian wood. If after Norwegian wood I could only picture Murakami as a 'short silhouette of darkness that passes by you, head down, glassy eyed, unattached from the world that is mooning over him', I now see him staring impassively over nighttime time Tokyo, unnoticed under a large black umbrella, reimagining lives of passerbys and how they intertwine once the world goes to sleep.

Murakami takes you on a journey in collective first person voice. He's not much of a talker. Instead, he walks a pace ahead of you and constantly reminds you that we are "sheer point of view and cannot influence things in anyway" . He flashes you the worlds of Mari, Eri, Takahashi, Koaru, Korugi, the Chinese prostitute and Shirakawa, but in a way that makes you invested instantly. His brooding encourages you to start conjuring up the crazy ideas as to how the messy knot would unravel at the end of the book. And he stomps on these expectations and walks away giving you an open ending.

But in a way, I am glad it is so. For instance, Mari is unable to sleep since her sister Eri can't seem to wake up. Eri is living nothing less than a fairy tale. She is both Sleeping beauty and Snow White. And you would hope that at the end of the overnight soul searching, as Mari climbs into bed with her sister, holds her tight, kisses her and urges her to wake up, Eri's eyelids would magically flutter open to a happy ending. But she sleeps on, unaffected by the tumultous night her sister had. Anything less would not have stayed in my mind for a week after I finished the book.

It is a constant reminder, just like Nell Zink's Nicotine, that may be this is what good books are supposed to do – 'give the comfortable reader a slap across the face and ask him to stop being a bore, help you evolve as a reader.'


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